The Persistence

All the children who were poets

have grown up now,

and up and down the street

they are fixing their houses. .

A woman walks her German Shepherd

into the evening;

as if his life depended on it,

a man mows his lawn.

America's great sea of cars

has broken apart,

and come to rest in driveways,

by closed morning glories.

"Why me? And why my life?"

the television asks

a family being assembled

on the living room couch.

Bewildered, the woman goes

back to the kitchen;

under the faucet, she holds

a glass filled with water.

Over and over, she fills it

up to the brim

until she stares at it, pleased

nothing has happened.

Nothing has happened. The crickets

only come out,

the wind only blows. Life only

isn't, then is.

No, that's not right, she thinks,

and remembers a poem

by Kipling-or was it Yeats

who once broke her heart?

Under the hedges, the poets

lie on their backs;

smiling and singing together,

they bring forth the stars.